Prediction of uniaxial compression PFC3D model micro‐properties using artificial neural networks

Artificial neural networks are used to predict the micro‐properties of particle flow code in three dimensions (PFC3D) models needed to reproduce macro‐properties of cylindrical rock samples in uniaxial compression tests. Data for the training and verification of the networks were obtained by running a large number of PFC3D models and observing the resulting macro‐properties. Four artificial networks based on two different architectures were used. The networks used different numbers of input parameters to predict the micro‐properties. Multi‐layer perceptron networks using Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio, uniaxial compressive strength, model particle resolution and the maximum‐to‐minimum particle ratio showed excellent performance in both training and verification. Adding one more variable—namely, minimum particle radius—showed degrading performance. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Magnetic field and electric current structure in the chromosphere

Three dimensional vector magnetic field structure throughout the chromosphere above an active region is deduced by combining high resolution H filtergrams with a simultaneous digital magnetogram. An analog model of the field is made with 400 metal wires representing fieldlines which are assumed to outline the H structure. The height extent of the field is determined from vertical field gradient observations around sunspots, from observed fibril heights and from an assumption that the sources of the field should be largely local. After digitization the magnetic field H matrix is retrieved. Electric current densities j are computed from j=curl H. The currents (typically 10 mA m^–2) flow in patterns not similar to observed features and not parallel to magnetic fields. Lorentz forces are computed from {ie0323-01}. The force structures correspond to observed solar features and a series of observed dynamics may be expected: downward motion in bipolar areas in lower chromosphere, an outflow of the outer chromosphere into the corona with radially outward flow above bipolar plage regions (where coronal streamers are observed) and motions of arch filament systems. Observed current structure and magnitude agree well with previous vector magnetograph observations but disagree with theoretical current-free or force-free concepts. A dynamic chromosphere with electromagnetic forces in action is thus inferred from observations.     

Assessment of downstream trends in channel gradient, total and specific stream power: a GIS approach

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analyses of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) coupled with catchment area based discharge estimation techniques provide a relatively simple means of modelling contiguous downstream trends in channel gradient, total stream power, and in riverscapes conducive to regime analysis, also specific stream power. For a small, high relief, coastal catchment in SE Australia, good agreement was obtained between channel gradients derived from a 25 m cell-size DEM and field survey equivalents over distances of several kilometres, indicating that channel gradients derived from DEMs can have a reasonable degree of absolute as well as relative accuracy over multi-kilometre reach scales. Assessment of downstream rates of change in channel gradient and specific stream power across four river systems suggests that some of the river reaches most responsive to high magnitude floods occur in zones where these variables rapidly decrease downstream. Modelling of downstream trends in channel gradient, total and specific stream power from catchment-wide DEMs has potential to provide a framework with which to investigate conceptual and empirical models between channel gradient, stream power and the form and dynamics of river systems.     

Horizontal velocities in the solar photosphere

Horizontal macroscopic velocities V _hor in the photosphere are studied. High-resolution spectrograms of quiet regions are analyzed for center-limb variation of rms Doppler shifts. The data are treated to assure that the observed velocities refer to constant size volumes on the Sun (800 × × 3000 × 250 km), independent of μ. Using known height variation of vertical velocities and calculated line formation heights, the height dependence of 〈V _hor〉 is obtained. From a value around 450 m s^?1 it decreases rapidly with increasing height. To study also small-scale velocities, the time evolution of subarcsecond size elements in the photospheric network (solar filigree) is studied on filtergrams. It is concluded that they show proper motions implying 〈V _hor〉 about 1 km s^?1.     

Some aspects of release and transport of gases in deep granitic rocks: possible implications for nuclear waste repositories

Radon, radium and helium data from three sites in granitic rock in Sweden (Forsmark and Laxemar) and Finland (Olkiluoto) from depths greater than 1,000 m were interpreted by a model that describes how daughter nuclides, including helium from uranium and thorium decay, escape from minerals, enter the pore water in the rock matrix and diffuse to the seeping water in the fractures in the rock. The radium concentrations are on the order of <30 Bq/l of water that has recently infiltrated and then emerged from the rock. Radon concentrations are mostly several orders of magnitude larger. The model predicts values in the same range. The fair agreement between model results, field data and laboratory data over a scale spanning micrometres over meters to kilometres, and time scales of days to millions of years, shows that the micropores of the rock matrix are connected even at depths down to and beyond a kilometre. Molecular diffusion in the matrix pore water is a key migration mechanism. Laboratory-derived sorption coefficients for radium are of the same magnitude as those needed in the modelling of the in situ data to give good agreement.     

Stellar intensity interferometry: Prospects for sub-milliarcsecond optical imaging

Using kilometric arrays of air Cherenkov telescopes at short wavelengths, intensity interferometry may increase the spatial resolution achieved in optical astronomy by an order of magnitude, enabling images of rapidly rotating hot stars with structures in their circumstellar disks and winds, or mapping out patterns of nonradial pulsations across stellar surfaces. Intensity interferometry (once pioneered by Hanbury Brown and Twiss) connects telescopes only electronically, and is practically insensitive to atmospheric turbulence and optical imperfections, permitting observations over long baselines and through large airmasses, also at short optical wavelengths. The required large telescopes (～10 m) with very fast detectors (～ns) are becoming available as the arrays primarily erected to measure Cherenkov light emitted in air by particle cascades initiated by energetic gamma rays. Planned facilities (e.g., CTA, Cherenkov Telescope Array) envision many tens of telescopes distributed over a few square km. Digital signal handling enables very many baselines (from tens of meters to over a kilometer) to be simultaneously synthesized between many pairs of telescopes, while stars may be tracked across the sky with electronic time delays, in effect synthesizing an optical interferometer in software. Simulated observations indicate limiting magnitudes around m_V = 8, reaching angular resolutions ～30 μarcsec in the violet. The signal-to-noise ratio favors high-temperature sources and emission-line structures, and is independent of the optical passband, be it a single spectral line or the broad spectral continuum. Intensity interferometry directly provides the modulus (but not phase) of any spatial frequency component of the source image; for this reason a full image reconstruction requires phase retrieval techniques. This is feasible if sufficient coverage of the interferometric (u, v)-plane is available, as was verified through numerical simulations. Laboratory and field experiments are in progress; test telescopes have been erected, intensity interferometry has been achieved in the laboratory, and first full-scale tests of connecting large Cherenkov telescopes have been carried out. This paper reviews this interferometric method in view of the new possibilities offered by arrays of air Cherenkov telescopes, and outlines observational programs that should become realistic already in the rather near future.     

Changes in the location of the United States Defence industrial base: Analyses of causative factors

During the last few decades international diffusion of the industrial activities among the established and the newly industrialized countries has occurred. Concurrently, the United States (US) has lost some of its status as the dominant industrial power in the World's markets. These changes have forced the US Department of Defence to surrender, at least partly, one of its principal strategic tenets, that of placing the reliance for its defence goods and services almost exclusively on the supplying entities located within the boundaries of the US.To a significant extent, these developments have come about as the result of the US policies not to intervene in the nation's and world's markets, and a deliberate and comprehensive intervention via policies, laws, and regulations in such markets by the governments of the other countries, including the US allies. The significant reduction of the military threat from the former Soviet Union may already have altered the conduct of the economic policies and defence strategies by the US, by its allies and by other nations.It is reasonable to assume that the US will see the continuation of international collaboration in the development, design and production of the future weapons systems. The former US allies and the other industrial nations, on the other hand, are in quest for further expansion of these industrial bases, and show limited interest in the further collaborative effect in the development of the future weapons systems.Unless appropriate co-operative economic and strategic policies are implemented, the emerging conflicts among the US, its allied and other industrial nations, presently in their infancy, may develop into a more intense confrontation among the world's industrialized nations. If this takes place, the US will be forced to abandon its laissez-faire policies, limit access to its markets and curtail the international diffusion of its industrial entities. The ultimate result of these developments may be geoeconomic conflicts among the industrial nations.This article is adopted from chapter in a forthcoming volume,Political and Geo-economic Issues Confronting the United States, the European Community, and Japan by Ewan W. Anderson and Ivars Gutmanis.